


pull out his incisors

by snitches_get_stitches



Series: matthew 5:5 [1]
Category: Mr. Robot (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Drug Dealing, Drug Withdrawal, Dubious Consent, F/M, Fridge Horror, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Prostitution, Recreational Drug Use, Therapy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:15:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,381
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snitches_get_stitches/pseuds/snitches_get_stitches
Summary: Elliot flinches when Vera lifts one of his big hands to cradle the other’s jaw, but doesn't pull away. “Poor Elliot,” Vera expresses, fingertips like white-hot irons where they dig into the soft parts of his neck, the tender skin behind his ear. They burn like his mother's cigarettes used to. “Don't you get it? I am your home."
Relationships: Elliot Alderson/Fernando Vera, Elliot Alderson/Shayla Nico, Elliot Alderson/Tyrell Wellick
Series: matthew 5:5 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1730557
Comments: 15
Kudos: 62





	pull out his incisors

**Author's Note:**

> this was supposed to be a part of a longer, more tyrelliot-centric work, but i just hit a dead end and didn't have the energy to re-work it. :/ anyways, here's another directionless one-shot.
> 
> takes place a little less than a year before the series starts, shortly after elliot first starts seeing krista. instead of getting hired at allsafe, shayla hooks him up with vera so he can start dealing for income, which turns into occasional sex work. i'm assuming he still does gray-hat hacking on the side.
> 
> also, no non-con is actually depicted in this, for anyone worried. it's heavily implied between scenes.
> 
> 2/25/20 update: changed the description to an excerpt. the red riding hood allegory wasn't sitting well with me anymore.

Elliot is high as a fucking kite right now.

Vera has him on the good stuff — pure white, _clean as a nun’s cunt_ , as Andy would say. It has Elliot going slack-jawed as the rush hits him, reclined and loose-limbed on a couch in one of Vera’s junk houses, the pleasure trickling down his spine and head spinning in what feels like slow motion.

“Fuck,” he voices eloquently, blinking up at he water-damaged ceiling. 

Shayla is next to him in a similar state, eyes clouded as she settles into him. He has no idea what she just took. He doesn't care. He has his M. That's all that matters.

She's warm, though, and he finds himself nuzzling her neck despite himself, adjusting himself and spreading his legs wider as his heartbeat begins to rush in his ears. She smells like copper, and he breathes her in hotly.

“Elliot,” she voices, one hand lifting absently to pet at his jaw. His hand goes to her bare thigh without thinking, squeezes. “Babe, not now.”

He groans but nods understandably, peeling back just as Vera sweeps into the room. The man pauses at the sight of them, eyes bloodshot and careful, straining in the dimly-lit room as he studies where their thighs still touch. “You better keep your hands off my girl, El,” he warns semi-threateningly as he approaches them. His wife beater is stained with something Elliot can't decipher, and he keeps his eyes trained on that instead of Vera’s face as he just nods noncommittally. “Up,” the dealer orders, kicking at Elliot's shin. “Some corporate type outside wants to fuck you.”

Elliot's ears perk at that, squinting up at the blonde. They didn't get _corporate_ often. “Corporate type?” he drawls lowly. “Sure he ain't a cop?”

“What, you think I’m stupid? The fag ain't no fucking _cop_. Get your bitch ass outside!”

Elliot goes meekly when Vera grasps at the back of his neck, hand firm and hot, and hauls him forward, feet stumbling. He manages to catch himself on the door frame, righting himself with some concentrated effort, struggling to make the room stop spinning before maneuvering down the hall and towards the front door.

It's open, and his customer really _does_ look corporate, wearing a suit way too nice for this side of town and looking slightly anxious, like he’s afraid to get caught here. A deer in the jungle. Typical, some wannabe-executive type using his money to hire junkie prostitutes and still worried about his reputation. “Hey,” Elliot greets, and his voice already sounds fucked-up, like he'd just gone down on someone. “You wanted to see me?”

There's a part of him that still doesn't understand why anyone would pay to fuck him. He's not pretty—he’s borderline ugly, even. All sunken features and waxy skin, bruised eyes. There are dozens of other boys involved in sex work around here that are objectively better at it than he is—that solicit outside of gay bars because it makes them feel powerful in a way. Desirable. But he quickly learned that there were men out there with a very particular sadistic streak running through them, men that can see he’s a junkie from his sallow skin and blown pupils, his brittle nails, men that can put together that he's only doing this to get his hands on his next high. They get off on it. They see his resignation, his inherent sadness, and it makes their dick hard to leer over someone who's been brought this low.

It's not about how Elliot looks; it's about how fucking Elliot’s junkie-skinny frame makes these men _feel_. And the answer is _powerful_. 

This man looks like the kind of person greedy for a power trip. He's young, a bit babyfaced, even, dirty blonde hair combed and gelled neatly in a side part. Someone on the path to being an executive, maybe, but not quite there yet, stuck in that infuriating rut of having to suck the right people’s dicks—metaphorically or literally, who knows—to have a chance of being taken seriously. There's a gold band on his left ring finger, a wedding ring he doesn't bother hiding, binding him to a wife that Elliot can guess probably has him by the balls with her acrylic nails. 

This is someone who gets walked on, someone who is dying to grind their shoe into somebody else's cheek, for once. “I’ve seen you before,” he finally opens, faux-confident. His accent is kind of funny, curling his _R_ s a bit too harshly, vowels a bit too smooth. “On the strip, with the other girls.”

“So you came and found me,” Elliot finishes for him, leaning against the door frame. Hard wood against his skull. His head is still swimming from his last hit, even though the surge of pleasure it came with is largely gone. “Nice job. Are we gonna do this or what?”

Next thing he knows, he’s being shaken awake by Shayla. “Elliot,” she says in her signature rusty drawl. “C’mon, we gotta get home.”

He's only half-conscious, but he jolts at the sound of someone smacking the wall. “Up and at ‘em, Elli,” Vera says. “Get yo’ girl home.”

His hips and ass feel sore, tender like they've taken a beating. Corporate Dirtbag must have already fucked him. Christ, was he so fucked up on M he passed out? He doesn't remember anything. “Thought she was your girl,” he mumbles in a half-assed smartass response, slowly pushing himself up.

“You're _both_ my girls, as far as you’re concerned, _Elliot_ ,” Vera hisses, and Elliot only spares him a blank stare before checking the damage under the covers. There’s dried come smeared on his stomach and between his thighs—anyone’s guess as to whose it is—but no bruises, so that’s good.

“You okay?” Shayla asks, clearly impatient to get out of there.

“Yeah,” Elliot answers, only a little disturbed. “Fine. I need to find my clothes.”

He finds his pants and boxers within arms reach while Shayla reaches for his shirt, flung on the opposite side of the bed at some point in Elliot's missing memory. They move quietly and stiffly under Vera’s watchful gaze, Elliot wistfully wishing for more coverage than a thin sheet as he tugs his jeans over his hips.

He’s pulling on his T-shirt when suddenly Vera makes an interested noise, and he and Shayla look up to find him swiping down to grab Elliot's hoodie off the ground. “The legendary hoodie, huh? Ain’t never seen you wear nothing else.”

“Vera,” he mumbles as he swings his legs off the bed, letting his eyes fall back to the ground. He doesn't have the energy for this fight, but he _needs_ his hoodie back. “Can I please have that back.”

“I dunno, man, I kinda like it! S’got that dark and mysterious thing going for it… might have to switch it up and get myself one.” There's a pause. Elliot doesn't look up. “Why don't you come up here and get it.”

Elliot _does_ look up at that, wondering what Vera’s whole plot to this is, but pushes himself up obediently (and tenderly) regardless. The few steps he forces himself to make towards the dealer are painful in more ways than one.

He reaches for the dark mass of material once it's within reach, cotton soft and familiar under the pads of his fingers, when Vera tuts and pulls it out of his grasp again. Elliot looks up at him, expression dark and careful.

Vera only grins, Cheshire-like, teeth yellow and faded in the dim lamplight. “Trade you a kiss for it.”

Like a command being executed, Elliot is suddenly and inexplicably _angry_ ; he’s pissed and embarrassed and exhausted, and all he wants is to go home with a bottle of morphine to lose the rest of the week in. It isn't _worth_ this. He wants to throttle Vera, to smash his face in with a baseball bat, to turn him into the police with an anonymous tip. He wants out of this loop.

But he knows what the exit conditions are. Knows it means quitting cold turkey and getting clean. Or maybe slinking back to another dealer and resigning himself to something worse without his suboxone—true addiction. No pretenses, just a constant oscillation between painful withdrawal and a cloudy high, his windows of functionality lost in the crash. It’s a life he just can’t accept, that is inaccessible in whatever is his current implementation of code. 

Shaking with anger, he bites out, “Vera. Come on. We just wanna go home.”

Elliot flinches when Vera lifts one of his big hands to cradle the other’s jaw, but doesn't pull away. “Poor Elliot,” Vera expresses, fingertips like white-hot irons where they dig into the soft parts of his neck, the tender skin behind his ear. They burn like his mother's cigarettes used to. “Don't you get it? I _am_ your home. The sun that you orbit. I give you _light._ ” His fingers dig in hard, stars in his nervous system, and Elliot hisses as Vera drags him closer. “No one will love you like I do.”

He punctuates the sentiment with a dirty kiss, all teeth and tongue, and Elliot can't help the small noise he makes in the back of his throat in protest. Incisors graze his tender bottom lip and the skin tears, flooding his mouth with iron.

It's only then that Vera pulls back, shoving his hoodie into his arms in the same movement, and Elliot stumbles as he's pushed back, still gasping from the shock of the liplock. “Now don’t keep my girl waiting. Get out.”

He and Shayla stumble onto the subway together a short while later, when he's crashing horribly, feeling shaky and cold with sweat. There's dried blood on his lip and the subway bench is stiff and frozen beneath him. “M’sorry, Shayla,” he finds himself mumbling, feeling sad and vulnerable in the hollow emptiness of the subway car. She shifts next to him, reaches for one of his clammy hands. “M’sorry I keep letting this happen to us. M’sorry I got you involved in all this.”

She sighs sadly, leaning in to nose at his temple. “I could say the same,” she points out. “S’okay, Elliot. Can't be like this forever, right?” 

“Right,” he agrees, although he knows she's wrong. People like them die young.

“What happened here?” Krista asks two days later, gesturing on her own neck to the spot where Elliot has fingertip-shaped bruises dotted along his jaw.

“Oh,” he rasps, mouth dry and cotton-y, a side effect of his withdrawal. He sniffs, exhales hotly through his mouth. Focuses on the palette of her freckles across her nose and not how shitty he’s feeling. “I dunno,” he finally bluffs. “I guess I didn't really notice.”

The bruises are nothing compared to the ache in his thighs, his back. The bloated feeling of a sinus headache, like the soft squishy front of his brain is too big for his skull.

He likes Krista. He’s only been seeing her for a couple weeks, but he hacked her before he even attended their first session. She's a painfully good person, if a bit lonely and validation-seeking and lacking in self-restraint. She can exercise it where it matters, though—she’s not the gossipy type, doesn't share secrets, even when she's not legally obligated. He likes that. Feels like he can trust her, even if he doesn't intend to any time soon.

His answer is an obvious lie, but she doesn't call him on it, following it in a different direction instead. “Do you often wake up with injuries you don't remember getting?”

Actually. “Yes,” he answers, truthfully this time. “Usually just like—little bruises on my knees or knuckles. I normally figure I just banged them on something and didn't notice until later.” He's not too keen on mentioning the john from last night.

“Does this bother you at all?”

He shrugs. “Not really. I have bigger fish to fry, y’know.”

She crosses her legs. “Do you mind sharing with me some examples?”

“Oh, I dunno,” he starts. “Maybe the fact I’m jobless and was forced into court-sanctioned therapy for something I don't even remember doing.” Okay, maybe that was a bit aggressive, but he feels like shit right now.

“This is twice now you've mentioned forgetting things or losing time. Does this happen with you frequently? Finding out you did things you don't remember doing? Or otherwise losing time?”

He shifts uncomfortably. “Yeah,” he admits. “I mean, not all the time. But maybe once a week or so. I’ll wake up and not remember what I did the previous afternoon, or something. Or smaller pockets of time.” He frowns. “Does that mean anything? Like. Is it a symptom of something?”

“Barring a head trauma, it might be a side effect of your current medication. But I can't say for sure. It could just be a combination of your stress and drug use. I understand you're a smoker. Do you use any other drugs for recreation?”

He hesitates, unsure how much he wants to share his current situation. “I smoke weed sometimes,” he admits, but that's not very incriminating. “When I’m stressed. It helps.”

“Marijuana can help with anxiety,” she agrees, “but I’d prefer if you simply took your prescription.”

He says nothing to that. Sniffs his nose again.

“I’m going to give you an exercise for this week. I want you to keep a journal, with time-stamped entries, at least one entry a day if possible. I’d like you to document your activities and feelings. It doesn't need to be terribly detailed—bullet points are fine. But I’d really like for us to pinpoint what's missing from your days and why.”

It's a simple assignment, and one he can easily bullshit, but for some reason the idea makes him nervous. He swallows, fighting off a shiver threatening to wrack his frame. “Okay,” he finally agrees. His head pulses.

He comes home to Vera reclined on his couch.

The dealer looks as haunted as ever, the bags under his eyes dark and bruised as he cooks a dose of heroin over Elliot's coffee table. There's a gun shoved in his waistband, an unspoken but weighted presence in the room, the guarantee of a threat.

He watches Elliot step inside cautiously, eyes dark and predatory as he drops his bag by the door and flits his eyes over Vera’s setup.

“Stocking up,” Elliot guesses, although it's more of a statement. He's starting to get used to this schedule, figuring out when shipments come in and supplies get dispersed, how to get returning customers.

Vera grins, slowly, lips peeling back to reveal his mouth tooth-by-tooth. “Wanted to make the delivery myself this time,” he opens. “Say hello to my two favorite worker bees, you feel?”

Elliot blinks. He forgot to take his suboxone this morning, and his withdrawal symptoms have only worsened all day.

The grin falls. “Sit with me,” he orders. 

Elliot approaches slowly, uneager to put himself anywhere near the other. He tells himself he's not scared of Vera, that the man's too despicable to be truly scary, but something about his intensity, his sheer unhingedness, sets Elliot's teeth on edge, kicks some base instinct into gear telling him to run.

He doesn't. Instead, he finds him settling besides Vera uncomfortably, watching the other flick the needle. “I don't do H,” he states, fumbling for some way to assert his ground.

“With me you do,” Vera counters easily. He looks over at him. “Sit pretty and hold this for me.”

Elliot's holding the needle before he can really process the request, but finds his eyes drawn towards the other's navel when he hears the distinct jingle of a belt buckle. Vera’s blunt fingers work at it easily, and Elliot finds his heartbeat speeds up a fraction as the leather slides off, the sound whispering in his ear.

“Vera,” he blurts, beginning to feel the faintest trickles of panic, like hot blood down his temples, the back of his neck. His eyes are glued to the gun still tucked in his waistband. “I really don't want to do this.”

By this time, the belt is looped around Vera’s hand, a thick band in his palm. When he looks at Elliot, his eyes are dark and deep. “You will in time,” he says with absolute faith, like it's fated, written in the stars still dotted on Elliot's jaw. A trickle of hot, bright pinpricks in the dark fabric of the universe.

He suddenly swoops in and kisses him hotly, the needle almost falling from Elliot's already loose grasp as slimy lips meet his and a tongue surges into his mouth. He tastes ashy, like cigarette smoke and dead skin, and it makes Elliot gag, choking at the intrusion.

For a reason Elliot can't quite fathom, Vera has zeroed in on him as an object of his desire, his obsession—his twisted manic pixie dream boy of the week. The focused attention makes Elliot deeply uncomfortable, claustrophobic. He hates being made to feel special. He hates being the center of anyone’s universe. He prefers to linger on the periphery, far outside of anyone's orbit.

But some force brought him here, sent him hurtling around Vera’s sun, bound him to the other even as he feels his hoodie being pushed off and the belt being wound around his bicep. It feels like a leash as it tightens, as Vera pulls away and leaves Elliot gasping, needle easily slipping into the other's hand.

“Vera,” he warns again, but it's less firm this time, breathless from the oxygen-depriving kiss and the slow-but-sure onset of a full-blown panic attack. The rush of his blood is roaring in his ears, aided along by the rabbit-nervous pitter-patter of his heart. He imagines this is how Red Riding Hood felt just before the wolf ate her.

“Shhh,” the other shushes, reaching for his belted arm and smoothing a thumb over the soft skin on the inside of his elbow. It feels uncomfortably intimate, even between his junkie hookups and occasional prostituting. Swallowing down someone’s dick is less vulnerable than this.

He flinches when the other flicks the skin, once, twice, until a vein protrudes, and it's only the image of the pistol in Elliot's direct line of sight that keeps him from jerking out of his grip. He squeezes his eyes shut, doesn't watch as he feels the prick of the needle and the invasive slide of the plunger, the careful loosening of his belt.

The euphoria is instant, and it hits so hard it's dizzying. His head feels heavy and he lets it fall back against the couch as warmth envelops him, legs sliding open. “Unh,” he barely manages, suddenly feeling dangerously nauseous. “Fuck,” and the word feels wrong in his mouth, thick and foamy. “I think I’m… think I’m gonna throw up.”

He's being guided to sit up and presented with a trash bin before he can even process his own statement, but it proves barely necessary when he gags hollowly and nothing but thin bile surfaces, dribbling like water from his mouth. Dimly, he remembers he forgot to eat today.

Vera’s saying something, wiping his mouth off for him and settling him back against the couch, but he can't decipher the words through the cloud of his high. Fuck, he can't parse apart anything, everything just a pleasant blur, like he was plunged into a deep, warm pool while the rest of the world raged above him.

Distantly, he registers himself being moved, clothes being peeled off his too-hot body, but he barely feels it. Instead, he thinks _maybe I can take a nap,_ and closes his eyes to welcome the inky blackness.

He wakes up gasping, hands fumbling for purchase on slippery porcelain as he surges upwards, water pouring off him.

It takes him a few moments to register his surroundings. He's in the bathroom, Shayla looking alarmed from where she’s kneeling on the hard tile next to him in the bath, dainty hands on his bare shoulders like she’d shaken him awake.

“Shayla,” he starts, voice high and thin, echoing against the tile. “Why am I in the tub.”

**Author's Note:**

> disclaimer: i've never done heroin and have no goddamn idea how fast it hits. also i've never been to therapy so ive got no clue how that shit works either.
> 
> don't do drugs kids.


End file.
